


Journeys End

by cordeliadelayne



Category: Whitechapel (TV)
Genre: Drama, Getting Together, Light Angst, M/M, No one knows what they're doing, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-22
Updated: 2016-06-22
Packaged: 2018-07-16 15:16:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7273291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cordeliadelayne/pseuds/cordeliadelayne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Knowing there's a destination makes the journey that much easier to bear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Journeys End

**Author's Note:**

> Set in series 3 but not based on any specific episode.
> 
> Originally posted to Livejournal in 2012.

Kent is sipping a beer in the pub when he sees Chandler outside. Anyone else, save possibly Miles, would see a smart suited business man heading home, but Kent sees that that week's investigation has settled on Chandler's shoulders, the faint tremor of a crisis threatening to engulf the DI. He briefly thinks about going out there, but dismisses the idea just as quickly. Chandler won’t appreciate it.

Then Miles is there, arms waving and face in Chandlers' and something in Kent slowly uncurls. It's all right, Miles will handle it, and the gulf between them slips further apart.

Kent takes another drink and refocuses on his flatmates' birthday, the shared jokes and the not so shared ones about cops and robbers and monsters stalking the streets of Whitechapel.

Kent tries not to bring his work home, nightmares aside, so he just smiles, nods and changes the subject. They're better off not knowing the truth. And for all their teasing they're a good bunch, two med students and the manager of a clothes store. And they get it, get that there are things he can't say and things he won't. They've seen glimpses of him in the news, in the background of a big case as the reporter talks about terror and blood and horrific injuries. They know he's seen things that they never will. But if it makes them feel better about sharing their space with him, then he doesn't mind, he's used to ribbing and it's never cruel, not like it can be at work.

* * * * * 

Kent doesn't see Chandler outside of work again for a few weeks. He'd say they'd just finished up a particularly trying case, but they're all that, it comes with being on Chandler's team and he wouldn't change it for the world. Though a restful night's sleep would be good every so often.

He'd given up trying to sleep past 6am when the med students had come back from a night shift, balls of restless energy that Kent had trouble dealing with most days, never mind days when one of their team ended up in hospital, Miles' face as pale as he'd ever seen it until the moment the doctor declared that Mansell would be fine.

Kent had headed out to a café a short walk from his flat. It was never busy but had good service and as a regular he often got a muffin thrown in for free. He's set himself up by the window, just idly watching the foot traffic when he spots Chandler walking purposefully down the street. Kent turns his head a little, not sure if he's avoiding being seen or seeing. But Chandler pauses and Kent looks up. They nod at each other and Kent pretends to find the menu fascinating, though he probably knows it better than the staff.

The door opens and Chandler comes inside. Kent watches him as best he can through hooded eyes and the reflection in the window. Chandler's order is complicated, which the manager seems to like, and before he knows it Chandler is sitting across from him.

“It's been a tough few days,” Chandlers says, and sounds as if he's repeating something he's been told.

Kent's eyes widen a fraction but he just nods.

“Sorry,” Chandler says, “platitudes don't really help, do they?”

“Course they do, sir,” Kent says, that urge not to make Chandler feel bad as alive and kicking as ever, “it's why we have them.”

Chandler smiles, a tired but appreciative lifting of the corner of his mouth. “Have you slept at all?”

Kent shakes his head. No point in lying, he's seen his reflection.

They don’t say anything after that. There isn't really much _to_ say, not that they haven't already gone over or written in their notes.

Of course, that's a lie. But Kent can't seem to make his brain form a sentence and though he's curious he doesn't ask why Chandler was in the area and Chandler doesn't seem at all curious about what Kent is doing there.

Chandler's drink is finally ready and he stands to collect it, then heads for the door.

“Get some sleep, Kent,” Chandler says as he leaves.

Kent orders himself another coffee and wonders when exactly he stopped trying to do everything Chandler told him.

* * * * * *

Mansell is an insufferable patient but he has the nurses eating out of his hand so he's happy enough. He'll be out next week and Kent thinks it will be nice, pain in the arse as he can be, to have Mansell back, to have the team whole again.

Kent doesn't even know why he's there. It's certainly not for a lesson in women, despite what Mansell seems to think. (The idea that he's a blushing virgin is stuck and though that's not the case, not the case _at all_ , he's not sure how to frame the truth).

He looks out the window, sees the sky darkening, storm clouds gathering. He'll get soaked if he doesn’t leave soon. Head for his bed and a decent night's sleep like a good policeman.

“Sir, you shouldn’t have,” Mansell is saying, and Kent turns to see Chandler standing in the doorway with a decent bottle of whisky in his hand.

“Miles' suggestion,” Chandler says, sweetly embarrassed, and casting a curious glance at Kent.

Kent nods a greeting and starts to take his leave. It's odd, still, somehow, to see Chandler outside of work. He gets used to thinking of Chandler in one way, compartmentalising his feelings and then, there he is, outside the box that Kent thinks he should stay in.

“Are you going?” Mansell asks. “Don't fancy a quick one?”

“No, you enjoy it,” Kent says, suddenly wanting to leave more than anything.

“Don't drink it all in one go, mind,” Chandler says, also heading for the door.

“Yes, sir,” Mansell says, saving his eye-roll and grin for Kent when Chandler has his back turned. Kent's not sure what expression to go for so finds himself shrugging his shoulders and then hurrying out before Mansell says anything else.

He's a little startled to find that Chandler is outside the room, waiting for him.

“Still not sleeping?” he asks.

Kent hesitates, then sighs. “Not really. I'll be fine. Just...”

Chandler nods, doesn't push. If Kent tries really hard he can forget that Mansell's blood had been all over his hands, that being part of Chandler's team is the best and worst thing that's ever happened to him. He's already got the physical scars to prove it.

“Don't let it eat you up. You saved his life.” Chandler indicates Mansell's room with a turn of his head. “You did good.”

Kent flushes slightly at the praise, as he always does; he knows Chandler means it, even though it's no longer enough.

“Coffee?” Chandler asks, not looking at Kent but away, further down the corridor. There are people milling about, but no one worth paying attention to.

“Won't help me sleep,” Kent says, just a trace of something bitter in his tone. He doesn’t know what he's doing, but then Chandler clearly doesn't either.

“Tea then?” Chandler turns to look at Kent, oddly vulnerable under the hospital's fluorescent lights. Kent finds his resolve crumbling, not really aware that he'd any until he senses it slipping away.

“Yeah, okay, sir. Thanks,” he says.

The canteen is busy, buzzing with staff but very few patients. There’s a crackle of lightening outside, and a rumble of distant thunder. Kent spots one of his flatmates and ends up introducing him to Chandler, relieved when he has go back to his shift.

“How did you meet, your flatmates?” Chandler asks as they stand in the queue.

“Friends of a friend,” he says, the truth too complicated to get into. He's better now, he thinks, not so worried about his worlds mixing, but still, he'd rather a slow bleed then a gushing flood.

If Chandler senses any obfuscation he doesn't say, just buys the teas and settles on a table as far away from humanity as possible. Kent clears the table of rubbish before sitting down, earning himself a small smile.

“I feel like I owe you an apology,” Chandler says, as the steam rises from the plastic cup.

Kent watches him neatly place the plastic stirrer and sugar packets around his drink.

“Apology for what?” he asks, erring on the side of being neither neat nor messy with his own preparations.

“I don't really know,” Chandler says with a smile that takes the years off him. Kent wonders, not for the first time, how it started, what pushed Chandler to need to keep things just so.

“It's fine,” Kent says. If it isn't, it will be, as his mum used to say.

Chandler stretches his legs underneath the table. They touch Kent's legs and stay there.

“I don't,” Chandler says, and then stops. Explanations aren't needed. Kent might want one, but they aren't needed.

“That's okay too,” Kent says after a while.

It isn't. But it will be.

* * * * * 

Chandler doesn't like people who agree with him. Not all the time. He likes the elegance of debate and the passions that are stirred. Kent knows all this and sometimes drops in a casual word or phrase to antagonise, just because he can, because he wants to see Chandler react. He thinks Miles knows what he's doing but since he doesn’t say anything, Kent considers that a blessing of sorts. Sometimes it leads to hurt feelings on both sides, sometimes it's something else entirely.

It's late. It's always late when they do this, the photos of the dead on the board, Chandler's neat writing evenly spaced around them the focus of the room.

Kent hadn't meant to stay but his flatmates are all out and he doesn’t fancy the quiet, not tonight. It doesn't answer the question of why he's sitting in a dark office though, with only faint sounds from outside as company. The others have headed home and he really should move, but he can't quite make himself go.

“How's the sleep going?” Chandler asks and Kent nearly has a heart attack.

“God, sir, do you have to creep about like that?”

Chandler smiles. “I wasn't creeping, I was walking.” He hands over a cup of coffee. “It won't help you sleep, but..”

Kent gratefully takes the cup, his fingers brushing over Chandler’s just a fraction. Chandler leans against Kent's desk, hips angled at Kent, and takes a sip of his own drink.

“Thank you,” Kent says. He's not really talking about the coffee.

“You're welcome,” Chandler replies. He's not talking about the coffee either.

They stay like that until their coffees are drunk and then go their separate ways.

Kent has the best night's sleep he's had in years.

* * * * * 

It comes to a head the night Kent drags a young girl out of the Thames. He'd gone for her while Riley and Mansell took down the suspect. He's soaked to the skin, barely able to move his fingers, they're so cold. But Chandler takes off his jacket and drops it round Kent’s shoulders while Miles shouts down his radio for backup and an ambulance.

“That was very brave,” Chandler says, warm breath ghosting against goose-bumped flesh, voice tinged with something akin to pride.

Kent shrugs, mainly because it's the only movement that doesn't hurt. He couldn't form a sentence now even if he wanted to.

“I still don't,” Chandler says, slowly releasing his hold on Kent's shoulders. “But I'm starting to think I could.”

Kent nods, slowly, thoughtfully. He's not sure what the right answer will be, so chooses not to make one at all.

Chandler surprises him by nosing at his head, gently pressing a kiss there before he gets up and heads over to Miles. He thinks he might have imagined it, but then he clocks Miles' face and sees the calculating expression he's wearing. Kent doesn't bother to pretend he doesn’t know what Miles is thinking.

But then Miles smiles, says something to Chandler that has him turning back to look at Kent. Kent feels bedraggled and exposed, stuck on the penultimate chapter whilst everyone else has reached the end. Chandler's looking happier though, and Miles' glare has softened.

Kent thinks this might be it, whatever he's been waiting for, and that it doesn't matter that he doesn’t know what he's doing. That nobody knows what they’re doing.

It’s starting the journey that's the point, he'll let momentum take care of the rest.


End file.
